The Daily Mall Reader: Joliet Mall Makeover

(Excerpt) JOLIET -- Lifestyle malls, with their fancy architecture and enticing boutiques, may be trying to woo shoppers away from the boxy, old malls, but not everyone is willing to lose business to the latest retail mistress.

Westfield Group, the Los Angeles-based company that owns Westfield Louis Joliet, is planning not only to update the interior of the 29-year-old building but also to construct a new shopping plaza and movie theater.

"New elements, new life, new energy," is how Catharine Dickey, a Westfield spokeswoman, described the plan.

5 Comments:

I guess now that this article answers some of my questions I had in the other Joliet Mall post.

"Lifestyle malls, with their fancy architecture and enticing boutiques, may be trying to woo shoppers away from the boxy, old malls, but not everyone is willing to lose business to the latest retail mistress."

Had to smirk at that statement. Who in the world find's a lifestyle center architecturally fancy? People who have zero concept of architecture.

Didi said... I guess now that this article answers some of my questions I had in the other Joliet Mall post.

"Lifestyle malls, with their fancy architecture and enticing boutiques, may be trying to woo shoppers away from the boxy, old malls, but not everyone is willing to lose business to the latest retail mistress."

Had to smirk at that statement. Who in the world find's a lifestyle center architecturally fancy? People who have zero concept of architecture.

They should drop these silly redicullouslly fancy names like "lifestyle center" or "the shoppes at..." and just call what it is, which everybody knows it is, its a freaking outdoor mall.

About the architecture of these "stylish" places they're a bad attempt at recreating classical/traditional architecture of downtowns and regular towns(post-modernist),problem is they turn out to look more disneyland-ish than their real life counterparts and a lot more blank facaded having no true architectual details like the older building had) . While the shopping experience in these places does seem more community-like it still puzzles me if these outdoor malls are supposed to be like towns,then why are all the streets NAMELESS??and if they want an outdoor area for shopping there is one IT'S CALLED DOWNTOWN, PEOPLE!!!

I think this is proof no modern building can truely duplicate historical architecture.